Everything but the Kitchen Sink
by Epitome of Bold
Summary: Series of unrelated Life With Derek drabbles and oneshots. Mostly Dasey.
1. Verbose

Dasey originally, but it morphed into a Lizwin...and ended up as a Gora. Pick one.

Verbose

* * *

He sat on the top stair because that's when it hit him like a ton of bricks. Right out of the blue.

She saw him and sat down beside him with a questioning look. He missed it, he was lost in his own world: head on his hands, elbows on his knees.

How had he missed this?

He went over everything that had happened before this realization. And only came to one conclusion:

"I think I'm in love."

"Uh-huh, who?"

"You don't know her." He said it quickly...really quickly...too quickly?

"Huh."

"Yeah."

Quite the verbose pair they were.


	2. Burn

Dasey.

Burn

* * *

Derek was quite glad when George and Nora caved and gave Casey the room next to his. He especially liked that she never shut her door entirely at nighttime—one of those silly quirks about being trapped.

And as he crouched outside of her door one night, watching her dance through the crack of her door, he knew he was going to burn in hell.

But he didn't care because he wouldn't be alone. Derek saw her smirk and shake her hips a bit more than she usually did.

She was so burning in hell for this too.


	3. Hype

Dasey, OOC-ness.

Hype

* * *

Casey liked being home alone, especially when it rained. Liked the peace, the stillness of the place that could allow herself to believe that time was actually slowing down and stopping.

It was a slow day anyway, a weekday in the summer when everyone had somewhere to be. She planned it so that she could be alone.

The rain pattered slowly on her window and the roof; she sighed contently, tipping her head against her wall.

Standing from her spot between her dresser and the wall, she thought about going into the hall.

She liked the melancholy shadows cast by the dreary days. The way the house was lit only by the soft gray light of rainy days.

She opened her door, coming face to face with Derek, who had just opened his door.

She hadn't known he was home, and he assumed he was alone as well.

After all, they were both unusually quiet.

"Hi," she said it quietly, slightly surprised, but in a way, not at all.

"Hi." He answered with a barely audible whisper—one only heard because of the exhalation of breath behind it.

His eyes looked at her with a look she couldn't place. Something unseen...something peaceful. A soft, adorable (almost) look on his face.

She turned around and went back into her room before her cheeks flushed and soon after heard his door shut, followed by him dropping onto his bed.

Maybe she understood what all the hype was about now.


	4. Easy

Dasey, mid-season one.

Easy

* * *

Derek kind of assumed that having three girls moving in the house would be awkward at first. He wouldn't know how to act, how to treat them.

Would they actually talk? Or could he manage not to cross paths with them except at dinner and breakfast?

What was he supposed to do? Befriend them? Ignore them?

He is also kind of relieved at how easily everything worked out. He knew how to act: like himself.

They were "family."

He ignores that.

He just is.

And he finds it funny how easy it was to fall into sync with his new life of annoying her and bugging her and being the anti-Casey.

It's so easy that he almost compares it to growing up with her, the way he picks up on life with her. _Almost_. He'd rather not call it that. It's too familial.

He settles for how it's so easy that it's as if being with her is supposed to be.

But he doesn't like to think that either...it's too un-familial?

It strikes him as easy. And it should irk him, but it doesn't. Maybe, it kind of does, but it doesn't.


	5. Honest

Dasey.

Honest

* * *

Paul asked of her two things, the promise for the first request to be made before the second thing was brought up.

She promised to be honest with herself.

So when she sits down at her desk that evening, writing Paul a list of reasons for hating Derek, she can't think of a single, valid reason for hating him.

Except one. (She maybe hates him because she doesn't and _that's just it_).

But she can't quite write that down for Paul, so she'll at least admit it to herself.

She hands Paul a blank sheet of paper; he smiles.

Cause to be honest, he knew all along.


	6. Simple

Dasey.

Simple

* * *

It's not like he hides out in the kitchen all night waiting for her to get hungry in the middle of the night during the summer.

It's not like she goes to the kitchen in the middle of the night a lot more often than when she was living in her condo.

When she walks into the dark kitchen to see Derek leaning against the counter eating a bowl of cereal, she isn't surprised in the least. She grabs a bowl, and he slides her the cereal box and milk without saying anything.

It's nothing new; it's almost routine. Not that they wouldn't deny it.

It's just the night, it's quiet, it's tired, it's morose, and most importantly, it's simple. At night.

Casey thinks that's why he never turns on the light...and neither does she.

The silence is routine, but Derek doesn't like that. Maybe Casey doesn't either. But it's simple, and simple is good. Very good.

They just stare at each other, eyes accustomed to the dark. They don't need the light to picture the person at which they are looking. The silhouettes from the moon and the dull glow are enough.

The clinks of spoons on bowls fills the silence for a while, until Derek breaks routine.

"Say something." Please.

She looks at her bowl, her bare feet brush against his legs as she is sitting on the counter.

I hate you...you frustrate me...you piss me off...you're a mess...I'm a mess...it's a shame.

All of them pass through her head.

She settles for, "I hate you."

He understands.

Simply shrugs, nods, and brings a spoonful of cereal to his mouth.

She shrugs too.

Because it's simple at night, and the simplest way to say 'I love you,' is "I hate you."

For them, at least.


	7. Fighting

Implied Dasey.

Fighting

* * *

He hears her yelling his name in that way she does that makes his heart beat faster in anticipation of a fight (Der-ek!).

He hears her feet pounding on the steps and the echoes they make as she approaches his door.

He hears her scoff as she goes into her room, slams the door.

He hears as she screams into her pillow and opens her door once again.

He puts on his fighting face—the smirk, the gleaming eyes, the raised eyebrow.

It's one that's so familiar now. One that wasn't so (so _so_) familiar before there were three new people in the house.

He hears his door open and her screaming voice.

But he doesn't hear her words.

He sees her face instead.

Her eyes gleaming and wide.

Her hair wavy and slightly messed up as she's running her fingers through it in frustration.

Her soft pink fingernails and her hands on her hips and that new shirt she bought when she went shopping last Thursday and those jeans that are her favorite pair that she got when he was somehow persuaded into going to the mall with her three months ago.

Her necklace of a silver dancer that she doesn't quite know who gave it to her but she has an idea.

He sees her.

She's still yelling at him. (How could you, Derek?!)

He's still watching her.

He brushes it off, stands from his bed, firmly (but gently) guides her out of his room.

He shuts his door slowly with a soft click.

He hears her door slam shut.

He sinks down against his door, head against the wall. Fighting face gone.

He's tired of fighting.

It had to happen sometime.

He wonders when he stopped instinctively wearing the fighting face and when he started having to put it on when he knew it was time.

He wonders if she's sick of fighting, too.


	8. Feeling

Dasey.

Feeling

* * *

Casey's too busy getting ready for her date...with Sam? Or is it Max now? Maybe Noel?

It's some guy that isn't him, and that's all Derek knows.

She's so busy that she doesn't notice him sneak into her room to pull his next prank.

And she doesn't notice when he barges into the bathroom to start a fight until he has her trapped between the wall and his body and she's trying to get around him.

She's in his face and he's in hers and her face is flushed and she's saying his name and if he closes his eyes maybe he can fool himself.

And once he leaves, he sits in his recliner and smirks.

A guy comes to the door; Nora answers. He doesn't really care who's behind that door except that they're taking his Casey on a date and he doesn't like it but he's not gonna admit that.

He's still smug because as she walks down the stairs he starts another fight.

She says it once more...his name in that way she always does when he frustrates her.

He's smug as she walks out the front door, knowing that whoever it is will never make her as angry as he does.

They will never get her as riled up as he will.

Hell, they probably won't make her love them as much as she hates him.

And for that, he's happy.

At least she feels something towards him. Hatred is a whole hell of a lot better than indifference.

It doesn't hurt that he knows whatever she feels for him (even if it is hatred), it's a lot stronger than her girlish infatuation.


End file.
